5.04 The Little Prince

100% not proofread. The write-up is a little late this week. The American government decided that according to the Fairness Doctrine, I had to give equal time for someone to gush how much they like the character Jack, and for a screen capper to prove that Sun does indeed blink once in a while. I beat the Men in Black off with a stick, and so here I am again, to provide angst, outrage, insane theories, and sometimes even talk about the most recent episode of LOST. I’ve been spending time thinking about alternate time lines/universes that this episode seems to make a case for.

The title of this episode seems to refer to a popular children’s book which I never heard of before. It has something to do with drawings, people in a desert, and an asteroid B612 that the Prince comes from. There are characters on this asteroid that seem to correspond to some of the LOST characters. It would take forever to make all the connection, so I suggest you look up The Little Prince on wikipedia, and I’m not prepared to write 2 pages on a literary reference as such you are not prepared to read the same, but the way I seem to read it, the King = Jacob or Locke, The Conceited Man = Benjamin Linus, The Drunkard/Tipplar = Jack, The Businessman = Charles Widmore, The Lamplighter = could be Locke, Daniel, Desmond, and The Geographer = Richard. Read about the story, but there is a later reference in the episode to this story. And the obvious connection is that Aaron is The Little Prince, as the main theme of the episode is the tug of war over the kid.

We start with the Oceanic 6, specifically Jack and Kate cutting a deal on the rescue boat, about 2 days off the island. Kate reminds everybody that Claire was going to give Aaron up for adoption, so in her mind Kate felt justified in keeping Aaron to raise. Sawyer is discussed as being gone. Jack and Kate strike an unspoken deal that Kate will support Jack and the Oceanic 6 cover story for Aaron. Felt very clinical and just like, well, an auction like Charles Widmore bidding on the Black Rock diary. Just struck me as creepy. Kate tells Jack that she has “always been with you”. Yeah, except for those times you were having dirty sex with Sawyer in the polar bear cages. Or the time you jumped Sawyer’s bones on the beach. Or…well, you get the idea. 3 years later, in Sun’s hotel room, Kate is dressing up for an appointment. Finally, somebody had the good sense to tell off the island Kate to stop applying makeup with a trowel. As Kate leaves, Sun receives a delivery full of intel, candy, and a gun. Life is like a box of chocolate. You never know what you are going to get. Oh, yeah? You know what you get? A box half full of crap. As we approach the horrific annual Valentine’s Day like a drunken grizzly approaching a bear trap, we are reminded how awful a box of Whitman Samplers are. Sure, over the years, you recognize some of the good candy, the ones filled with caramel, or almonds, or solid milk chocolate. But woe is the victim of a chocolate covered purple fluff, or a chocolate covered pink fluff, or some other weapon of mass destruction. And if get to an already open box, you can bet someone has been jamming their thumb into the bottom of every piece of candy to see what is inside, and if it is unpalatable, then that candy goes right back to where it started. How many manhandled, half filled boxes gets discarded year after year after year. Hey, candy companies. Here’s a concept. Fill up the heart ahaped boxes with stuff people actually want to eat, and charge a little bit more. Everybody will be much happier. I can’t tell you what is worse, a box of mystery chocolates, or a sharp stick to the eye.

The Jungle 6 (Daniel, Charlotte, Miles, Locke, Juliet, and Sawyer ) are tending to the bleeding Charlotte. Of course, Rose and Bernard, the other Losties who all jumped before, Claire, etc. but nobody else seems to be around. Just the 6. Well, I’m glad that they are still being featured at this point, as they are probably the 6 most interesting characters on the show at this minute. Juliet tries to extract information from Daniel about what is going on. Daniel continues to be a lunkhead and mostly says he doesn’t know what is going. Bah. I do believe that he doesn’t really know why it isn’t happening to the others. Kate goes to the lawyer to cut a deal with no leverage. Interesting how the client refuses to be known, at all costs. But the “you’re going to lose Aaron” is a vehicle of manipulation and course correcting. Revisiting the Jungle 6, Locke hatches a plan to return to the Orchid, but no idea what to do when they get there. You know, this probably isn’t very bright. If they go into the hatch, and time jump to a time before the hatch was built, would they just leap inside the ground, basically burying themselves alive? Well, they have to go back to the Zodiac raft. Locke insists that the Oceanic 6 are still alive, no doubt echoing what future Richard told him. Locke then jokes about bring the Oceanic 6 back, “even if it kills me”. He then addresses the elephant in the room, and asks Sawyer if he wants Kate to come back. Holy hell, did anybody else in this show’s history, other than Jack, ever mention this before? It’s like a family secret or something. Charlotte wakes up “Who are you?” Looking at Daniel. Oddly enough, after an introduction, Charlotte focuses on Daniel, closes her eyes, “Oh!!“ and snaps back. Is Daniel somehow her constant? I doubt it, but for some reason she regained her mind when she acknowledged him. Jack is tending to Sayid in the hospital, who has been out 42 hours (4,8,15,16,23,42) on horse tranquilizers. Jack gets called out of his room and gets yelled at for breaking his suspension due to substance abuse. In mid rebuke, Jack gets a call from Hurley, which of course is a brilliant use of your phone call from jail. Don’t call Mom or Dad, or a lawyer. Call Jack. Our Hurley Sucks Moment of the Week. As Sayid is twiddling his thumbs, a nurse comes in to give him some medicine. As the nurse spins just in time to put two tranquilizer darts into a pillow, Sayid attacks. For fock’s sake, he is choking a guy to death with an IV cord, a nice follow up to killing someone earlier this year with a dishwasher. Sayid has shaken is inconsistent tough guy/stupid guy on the island to become a certified bad ass. It is never made clear who this guy is working for, but Sayid pulls out Kate’s address from his pocket, 42 Crescent Place (4,8,15,16,23,42) .

Jack, Ben, and Sayid huddle up. Hannibal Ben, Face Jack, and Mr. T Sayid split up to rescue Kate and Hurley. So they can meet at marina 23 (4,8,15,16,23,42). The Jungle 6 are stomping through the jungle as Sawyer asks Locke what he will tell Kate to get her to come back. Yeah, that’s a tough one. But just at that moment, we see a shaft of light going up in the sky. Locke immediately recognizes this as the Swan hatch light from Season 1, as Desmond hit a light switch. Actually, this is the second time the time travelers has encountered Desmond on the island. Locke steers the hikers away, no doubt fearing a time paradox, interacting with themselves from the past can cause serious ripples for the future. Course correcting, and Daniel saying what has already happened, happens. But I am having serious doubts about that. Miles starts to bleed. Sawyer goes to investigate screaming in the jungle, despite Locke’s protest. Sawyer spends a minute in the bushes, watching Claire give birth to Aaron while Kate assists. No doubt, one of the most touching moments in LOST history. And only this show can deliver an emotional punch from a time traveler from the recent future watching a child birth scene with two people he really misses. Time jump.

Kate meets Jack at her car. The lawyer pulls out, wide open window, pauses at edge of parking lot driveway blatantly, just begging for somebody to follow him, which Jack and Kate promptly do. As the Jungle 6 march on, Locke really badly wants to know what Sawyer saw. Locke explains the light shaft, concluding that it was just a light. I have to disagree. It was a crucial moment of doubt in his faith in the island, and he got a sign to carry on with his work. Sawyer suggests that he could have told himself to do things differently. Locke said he needed the pain to get to where he is now. I have two other problems with this. If you try to change the future, there is no guarantee that the change will matter, as this series has demonstrated an unyielding theme of course correcting from the universe. Next, if you do change the past, you could theoretically change the future, and there is no guarantee the future events transpire exactly like they did the first time around. Also, no future Locke talked to past Locke on the island, as far as we know. So if it didn’t happen, it can’t happen. Miles questions Daniel about the nose bleeds. Here we have 6 people moving through the jungle in a group, but they are still having individual secret conversations. Daniel theorizes that it might be related to time spent on the island, and basically questions Miles’ statement that he was never on the island before. How would he not remember being on the island before? Maybe as a very young child, much like Dr Chang’s kid. But this also means Charlotte was on the island for a while, but how? We just don’t know yet. The Jungle 6 stumble on the facsimile Losties camp at the beach, but no food or beer is left. The Zodiac is gone. A pair of racing canoes are on the shore. An Ajira Airways water bottle is in a boat. Let’s call a time out here. A new website was just set up at Ajiraairways.com, much like when we were visiting Oceanic Airlines website. Here is s scene that is universally accepted as a future scene. But no evidence of Oceanic is there, but instead Ajira. Is it that inconceivable that this is an alternate time line/universe. Something changed in the past where Oceanic never crashed on the island, but the island needed help, so they grabbed another plane from the sky. Not Oceanic 815, But Ajira. How interesting that the motto of Ajira is Destination, Destiny. Yeah, destiny is leading your destination, maybe to hidden island in the Pacific Ocean. Daniel said what happened, happened. But what about the future. What if somehow along the way of time jumps, the future changed?: The past is intact so far, the 1950’s, Danielle, etc. But maybe something is very amiss based on the time jumps. Sawyer asks about Other Others, which is a theory I continue to push since Season 2, when a mysterious group kidnapped Tailies at the beach, obviously not Ben’s Others, who were instructed to do nothing for 3 days until Goodwin got a list together. As the paddling is happening, Sawyer admits to Juliet that he saw Kate in the jungle. The other canoe, populated with God knows who starts to shoot at the canoe. How weird would it be if Juliet was shooting at Juliet. Sawyer proclaims to the heavens as the time jumps starts “Thank you, Lord” to a scene of a driving rain storm “I take that back.”. Lucky for these mooks that the canoe didn’t disappear. I’m still not clear the rules of what objects can time travel with you. And exactly how many days has it been since the Jungle 6 ate a meal? Jack and Kate arrive at what I believe was the hotel where Locke helped his dad swindle some cash, got caught by his girlfriend in aiding his dad, then got rejected as he proposed to Peg Bundy. The lawyer is there to meet Claire’s mother. Which is obviously a plot device to throw us off.

Jack wants to fix things. Which is nice. Seems like he is earnestly trying to repair the damage he has caused by leading them off the island and his relationship with Kate. Stupid Fairness Doctrine. Jack talks to Claire’s mother, and she doesn’t know who the hell Aaron is. Well, aside from Jack all but admitting that they stole the baybeeeeee, he resolves that plot twist. Kate tells Sun to bring Aaron and meet them at the marina. Duh. Stupid. Ben and Sayid pull into a parking garage in their Canton-Rainer van to meet Ben’s lawyer. First of all, Canton-Rainer is an anagram of “Reincarnation“. Secondly, the lawyer calls Ben “Mr. Norton”. Thirdly, Hurley will be released in the morning. Ah, the justice system at work, or jut merely course correction. The Jungle 6 reach shore, and discover a brand new wreckage site, one that features containers with French language, mainly Besixdouze. Using a mix of French and English, Be-six-douze = B612, as in The Little Prince story. Next, we see a number of French folks on a raft seeing an island in the distance, and paddling towards it, discovering a castaway, who they pull aboard, who is none other than Jin. First of all, I predicted Jin being alive way back in the Season 5 preview in early January….
Jin: sadsack. He really pissed me off in Season 4. He spend quite some time being pissed at Sun because she learned English behind his back. But when he found out she cheated on him, a few hours later, he came back to her sheepishly and didn’t even ask for an apology. Are you kidding me? That is a defeated man. He had the role of buying a panda for the baby in the hospital in the episode that had a flash back and flash forward running simultaneously. The 2nd panda he purchased was an example of the universe course correcting. Is Jin really dead? Remember, when the kidnapping of Walt happened, the Others blew up the raft. We didn’t see Jin until Michael and Sawyer washed up on shore and met the Tailies who were chasing Jin. Jin could still be alive. The problem is, he is too far away from the island, and might be doing a doggie paddle in the middle of the ocean with zero islands of any kind near by. Maybe he can be lucky enough to find the island if he swims in the direction of the right coordinates. Then lands on the island and has Desmond type of time travel episode where Sun is the constant. Or he is just dead. And why was he continuing to look at snipping wires while Michael was freezing the charge on the freighter? Desmond couldn’t do it, and gave up. What makes Jin think he could have done it? Then he stayed too long and was blown up. Dummy. Jin is/was a hapless pawn.
I have a real problem with Jin being found here. How do we reconcile that the helicopter practically on top of the island was not pulled along with the island moving, but somehow Daniel and the Zodiac passengers being further out being included in the move, and now apparently Jin, who has 5 miles off shore. Don’t forget, When the first time jump happened, the frozen donkey wheel move by Ben, Sawyer and Juliet could not see the freighter anymore, it didn’t jump, but Jin did? Wow, the rules of the island are really illogical. Therefore I choose to ignore a lot of these time travel inconsistencies, unless they really bother me. Most of the Oceanic 6 are now at the marina. Jack finally tells Kate about the assassin with the address in his pocket. Kate is mortified when Ben shows up with Sayid. She accuses Ben of hiring the lawyer to take away Aaron, to which Ben readily agrees. What? After many seasons of complicated Ben lies, he actually admits to something that sleazy. I realize that Ben is an evil genius, but what possible positive outcome can happen from him admitting to Kate that it was him pushing her. Even Jack, who mere seconds ago was defending Ben, is dumbfounded. Jack Sucks Moment of the Week. Stunning.
Also, from a few weeks ago…
Lawyers came to see me, and Sun is curious about who they represent. Being that Sun only recently told Widmore about wanting Ben dead, and that the lawyers flushed out Kate before Sun ever called, I have to think at this point that Ben sent the lawyers
Sun is hiding in the shadows with Aaron in the back seat, and emerges with a gun. I swear, Sun reminds me of that psychopath astronaut that drove thousands of miles wearing a diaper, trying to kill someone. She had the same crazy eyes that Sun has. A reader of my awful rambling pointed out that Sun blinked almost 5 times in this episode. I counted less, but I may be biased. Jin wakes up on the beach, a dehydrated, sunburned mess. I have to wonder if Jin simply drifted in the LOST island waters after the explosion, and is just NOW time traveling, or has he been traveling unconscious all along. Either way, the island clearly wants him alive. I don’t think anybody else is going to be found as survivors of the freighter explosion. The island powers did extent that far, as we saw Libby on the boat when she was talking to Michael. Jin is able to communicate his situation in broken English to a pregnant French woman, no surprise, who is Danielle Rousseau. Which I was very happy to see. I very much wanted to see a Rousseau flashback, and how we will get it, somewhat. Danielle said that she gave birth on the island, and the fact that she is pregnant right now, means she was truthful. So what happened between Rousseaus’s child birth and Claire’s child birth, where all the Others kept dying in child birth. What happened there? Plus this is probably after the Dharma genocide, and the Others’ ruled the island. Ben admitted to Keamey last season that he stole Alex from a crazy woman. So, what happened to the French castaways. Meanwhile, Jin and Rousseau co-existed on the island during the Oceanic 6 heyday. Jin obviously recognized her or at least her name. But Rousseau did not recognize Jin at all before she was killed off by Keamey’s men. Why? Is it that the future is somehow affected by these time jumps. I really need more information here.

OK. Shorter writeup this week. So far, every episode was been full of caramel goodness. I hope we don’t get any chocolate covered yellow fluff.